Seattle Information Technology

Seattle IT put together some simple, proactive steps to protect personal, medical, financial, and other sensitive information online.

Take these steps to prevent misuse, abuse, and unauthorized disclosure of your information.

• Regularly review and set security and privacy settings for online accounts to your comfort level. Be aware how much you are sharing and with whom. Be sure to do the same for accounts of children and vulnerable family members.

• Keep application, system, and firmware up to date on all PCs, smartphones, and tablets. Software patches and updates often include bug fixes and enhancements to protect against viruses and vulnerabilities.

• Install anti-virus/malware software on all devices, and keep it updated.

• Enforce the use of strong passwords, passphrases, or PINs to access all accounts, devices, and access points. Many devices and online accounts offer additional authentication options (such as Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, and others) where, in addition to your password, a second authentication step can be used as an added layer of security (such as sending an access code via text message, a biometric check such as fingerprint, or a hardware token).

As part of the City of Seattle’s ongoing commitment to transparency and to make the process of obtaining public records as easy as possible, the City is launching the Public Records Request Center. This online public portal offers constituents one system for submitting and tracking public disclosure requests, downloading records, monitoring the status of their previously submitted requests, communicating with public disclosure officers, and making payments. It also identifies commonly requested records, and directs constituents to records that are readily available on Seattle.gov.

“Since the beginning of my administration I have pushed for an innovative, accountable City government that delivers on its public commitments smartly and transparently, while harnessing the power of technology,” said Mayor Ed Murray. “The Public Records Request Center delivers on this commitment, ensuring the City has a consistent and efficient process and making public records more accessible to the entire community we serve.”

Over the last several years, the City has taken major steps to improve and streamline management of the public disclosure process. In early 2016, the City initiated the first phase of the project, launching the Public Records Request Center specifically for records held by the Seattle Police Department, as nearly 70 percent of the approximately 8,800 annual requests for City records are for records held by SPD.

The City’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services managed the second phase of the implementation on behalf of all other departments and offices, with a soft launch on Sept. 28. This new system is a cornerstone of our efforts to make Public Records Act compliance a sustainable line of business for City agencies while also creating a more efficient and consistent experience for our customers.

Many public records are readily available on Seattle.gov. Some records are not automatically posted online for many reasons, including that they may not be of widespread interest, they are simply too large or they contain confidential information. To assist customers with their search for records, we’ve collected commonly requested record types with links to where they can be obtained online when available. The City also posts a wealth of information on data.seattle.gov.

With high-winds and rain predicted for Seattle and much of the Pacific Northwest this weekend, it is recommended that residents take extra precautions at home and when out. Residenst should defer traveling during the storm, avoid and report downed power lines and trees, and be cautious near areas experiencing flooding.

• Keep storm drains free of leaves and other debris to prevent streets from flooding. Be sure to stay out of the road when raking.

• All Seattle Parks and Recreation grass athletic fields, including West Seattle Stadium, will be closed through the weekend. Most importantly, please remember to safe and use extreme caution outdoors. Parks officials encourage residents to avoid Seattle parks entirely this weekend due to the high-winds.

• Seattle Parks has cancelled programs and activities in parks across the system. For the most up-to-date information please visit seattle.gov/parks

• Generally, we want to remind you that if you do lose power, keep grills, camping stoves and generators outside. Fuel burning appliances are sources of carbon monoxide, a dangerous and poisonous gas.

• Have an emergency preparedness kit ready to help you get through until power is restored

• A temporary, emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness will be open at the Seattle Center Fisher Pavilion – near 2nd & Thomas, south of Key Arena. The co-ed adult shelter will open on Saturday and Sunday from 7 PM to 7AM. This shelter can accommodate 100 people.

• King County Shelter for adult males has expanded capacity to serve 50 additional men Friday through Tuesday, 10/14 – 10/18. The King County Shelter is located at the King County Administration Building at 500 4th Avenue in Seattle. The shelter opens at 7 PM.

• The City Hall Co-ed shelter at 600 4th Ave in Seattle will expand capacity Friday through Tuesday 10/14 – 10/18 with an emphasis on accommodating women seeking shelter. The shelter is open from 7PM to 6AM.

• Sign up and use AlertSeattle at alert.seattle.gov for up-to-date information from the City of Seattle

• The City will have additional staff and crews available throughout the evening and weekend to respond to emergencies as they arise. The Seattle Emergency Operations Center and Joint Information Center will be activated throughout the weekend.

Mayor Ed Murray and the City Council today awarded 10 Seattle organizations a total of $320,000 in Technology Matching Funds from the City of Seattle. Council committee voted unanimously to approve the awards. Full Council approval is expected on Sept. 6.
“Technology impacts nearly every facet of our lives, from finding jobs to thriving in school,” said Murray. “Our investment in these community driven projects will open the door to greater success for Seattleites who lack sufficient technology access and essential digital skills.”
“One of the most effective and meaningful community investments we make in this City are these technology grants,” said Council President Bruce Harrell. “These grants help people succeed by learning skills critically necessary in the 21st century. They provide critical support where the digital divide is the greatest, to our low-income, homeless, immigrant refugee, senior and disabled residents.”
The Technology Matching Fund projects help meet the city’s Digital Equity Initiative goals of increasing connectivity, digital skills training, and providing devices and technical support, through partnerships and community-driven solutions. They will assist more than 2,500 residents in historically underserved or underrepresented communities, including 580 immigrants and refugees, 1,240 seniors and 1,100 people with disabilities.
The 2016 Technology Matching Fund award recipients include:

Hired in July, Dena fills the final position on Seattle IT’s Executive Team where she leads the effort to keep the City’s—and its customers’—data secure and privacy protected. To do that, Dena sees her challenge as “responding to day-to-day security and privacy matters while getting an understanding of the vast and complex City of Seattle, its systems and operations.” One of her first priorities is to develop a prioritized and cohesive multi-year strategic plan for the City’s information security, risk, compliance, and privacy program—a plan that will ensure information assets are stored and protected in a manner that meets or exceeds corporate, compliance and regulatory requirements, and builds the public’s trust in government.

That is a tall order for somebody still new to the City of Seattle; Dena acknowledges that success depends on “developing, and empowering a team of proactive, collaborative, knowledgeable individuals to help carry out the plan.” She says she feels fortunate that her staff and the other Seattle IT employees she has met are “incredibly talented, knowledgeable, and dedicated.” One of the first accomplishments in building out the new Security, Risk, and Compliance team was the appointment of Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Brausieck, who will be joining the team on August 10th.

While Dena may be new to the City, she is not new to her role. She comes to Seattle IT with more than eighteen years of experience in technology, information security, risk management, compliance, and privacy. She has worked on four continents and lived in South Africa prior to moving to the state of Washington thirteen years ago. A Certified Information Security Auditor, she has assisted a wide range of public and private sector organizations, participated in various security industry initiatives, and served as Director of Corporate Risk and Compliance for drugstore.com/Walgreens, where she managed security, privacy, compliance, internal audit, payment processing, and IT finance.

When she’s not working, Dena enjoys adventure travel, photography (she is now venturing into astrophotography,) and spending time with friends and family, including her 20-year-old son when he is home from college.

Both personally and professionally, Dena sees Seattle IT as a great fit. “I decided to join Seattle IT after meeting Michael Mattmiller and the IT leadership team who I can now proudly refer to as my colleagues,” she notes. “I wholeheartedly believe in the vision and direction and simply could not turn away from the opportunity to work with you all to tackle the challenges, mitigate the risks, and be part of the solution.”

SEATTLE – Seattle Channel is the recipient of two Northwest Regional Emmy Awards for historic/cultural programming, one for a segment about the Georgetown Steam Plant and another for an animated short film about a local World War II veteran.

The city-operated station was recognized Saturday, June 4 at the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Arts & Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy Awards ceremony.

“Seattle Channel’s in-depth coverage of City Hall and Seattle’s diverse communities helps residents stay informed, engaged and connected with their city,” said Mayor Ed Murray. “I congratulate the station on its work and its commitment to inspiring civic engagement.”

A CityStream story about the Georgetown Steam Plant, now the Georgetown PowerPlant Museum, won in the historic/cultural segment category. A blast from Seattle’s past, the plant was built in 1906 mostly to power the city’s electric streetcar system. The segment was produced, photographed and edited by Ralph Bevins. Watch the winning segment: http://www.seattlechannel.org/explore-videos?videoid=x57291.

Shiro Kashino, a World War II veteran who grew up in Seattle’s Central District, is the subject of an animated short film, An American Hero: Shiro Kashino, which won in the historic/cultural program category. The feature, part of Seattle Channel’s Community Stories series, draws from the graphic novel Fighting for America: Nisei Soldiers, written by Lawrence Matsuda and illustrated by Matt Sasaki. The piece was produced and directed by Shannon Gee, animated by Randy Eng, with audio engineering and sound design by Thomas Cavit and writing by Lawrence Matsuda. Watch the winning feature: http://seattlechannel.org/CommunityStories?videoid=x59988.

“Seattle Channel is a catalyst that helps bring people together and develop a better understanding of our changing city,” said Seattle City Council President Bruce Harrell, chair of the Council’s Education, Equity and Governance Committee. “The station’s inclusive programming features a variety of voices on subjects ranging from public policy to the people and cultural traditions that comprise Seattle.”

In the 53rd annual Northwest Emmy Awards, Seattle Channel competed against commercial and public television stations in the Northwest NATAS five-state region which includes Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. This year, the station received 17 Emmy nominations in program categories including overall station excellence, arts/entertainment, health/science, politics/government, interview/discussion, promotion/program campaign as well as photography and editing.

“Seattle Channel is committed to producing quality content with depth and impact,” said John Giamberso, Seattle Channel general manager. “Our public-affairs programs spark informed civic dialogue and our arts features and documentaries entertain and inspire. I applaud our talented team for its dedication to excellence in local programming.”

Seattle Channel is a local TV station that reflects, informs and inspires the community it serves. Seattle Channel presents programs on cable television – channel 21 on Comcast (321 HD) and Wave (721 HD) – and via the Internet at seattlechannel.org to help residents connect with their city. Programming includes series and special features highlighting the diverse civic and cultural landscape of the Pacific Northwest’s premier city.

Since 2015, the City of Seattle has been working quietly on a number of programs to make our government more data-driven, results-oriented, and innovative. We passed a new open data policy that balances transparency and privacy. We are shifting to a new model for performance management, both within the City and with our contractors. We are using design thinking to explore new approaches to big issues such as youth unemployment and homelessness, with a 5-person team in Mayor Murray’s Office of Policy & Innovation dedicated to one project at a time. What has made such big changes possible in such a short period of time? The common thread is Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Inspired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s experiences using data and design thinking to improve that city, Bloomberg Philanthropies has created a number of initiatives that make it possible for other cities to explore what “works.” These include What Works Cities (hyperlink: http://whatworkscities.bloomberg.org/about/), a national initiative for mid-sized cities to improve use of data and evidence in decision-making, and Innovation Teams (hyperlink:http://www.bloomberg.org/program/government-innovation/innovation-teams/). Under Mayor Murray’s leadership, our city is taking full advantage of both. Seattle is one of the pilot cities in What Works Cities and currently has an Innovation Team in its second year of operations.

On May 26, Seattle IT hosted a panel discussion at the local Impact Hub to share the work these groups are doing with the broader public. The panel was moderated by Candace Faber, the City’s Civic Technology Advocate, and featured:

Tyler Running Deer, Seattle’s Organizational Performance Director, who has been leading the City of Seattle’s engagement under the What Works Cities program,

Chrissie Grover-Roybal, Innovation Fellow with the Government Performance Lab at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and

Tina Walha, Director of the Innovation Team in the Mayor’s Office of Policy and Innovation.

Over 60 people attended May 26 Event at Impact Hub

The City of Seattle joined What Works Cities in August 2015 as one of eight cities in the first national cohort, setting goals for three projects: to research and establish a Citywide Open Data policy and program; to design and develop a Citywide, central organizational performance program; and to explore, analyze, and establish a pilot results-driven contracting practice to improve the outputs and outcomes of contracted services to the public.

The first two projects are complete from the What Works Cities perspective, having now been institutionalized in the City through dedicated full-time positions in Seattle IT and the Mayor’s Office as well as new roles for existing staff across departments. The performance team is working on a strategic framework and a toolkit to help city departments better use data and information to manage services and programs, anticipated to be complete by mid-2016. The third project, led here by Chrissie Grover-Roybal, is still in progress, and reorients the structure and management of homeless services contracts to focus on improving outcomes for people experiencing homelessness.

The Innovation Team spent its first year examining strategies to increase access to opportunity and decrease the impact of violence among Seattle’s young Black men, ages 14 to 24. This year, the team will be focused on addressing Seattle’s homelessness crisis. To learn more about the Innovation Team, check out http://murray.seattle.gov/innovationteam.

Susan Goodman knows a lot about data and information – how to collect, maintain, manage and dispose of data, carefully. She also knows about the delicate balance between transparent government and protecting its citizen’s Privacy.

Susan brings impressive credentials to Seattle. She has a Master’s Degree and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional with extensive experience – in the US and globally – in both the public and private sectors, in-house and as a consultant. From the City and County of Albany, NY, to NY State Govt., the Public Utilities Board of Brownsville, Texas, the Town of Wethersfield, CT, Consumer Reports, Bank of America, Citigroup and others – she developed, led and enhanced Records Management and Privacy programs. Susan was also an adjunct professor of Records Administration at Wayne State University. She speaks at conferences and contributes to technical publications to advance Privacy and Information Governance.

Under the leadership of Mayor Murray, in November 2014 the City launched its Privacy Initiative, led by the Seattle Police Department and Department of Information Technology. The initiative defined how the City collects, uses, and disposes of data in a manner that balances the needs of the City to conduct its business with individual privacy. Seattle is one of the first cities in the nation to establish its own privacy principles to protect personal information. City partners and vendors are instructed to follow the same guidelines.

As Seattle’s Chief Privacy Officer, Susan looks forward to collaborating with all City departments, the Community Technology Advisory Board, the Council, Seattle’s advocacy committee and others to continue to build and to lead a cutting edge Privacy program and to earn the public’s trust in how the City collects and uses data.

“I was very impressed with the City of Seattle and Seattle IT and how forward thinking it is,” she said. “Protecting the private information of Seattle residents, and gaining public trust, is critical to enabling the City of Seattle to provide its residents with valuable, advanced technologies and services.”

Susan’s husband Alan is a retired Social Service Executive Director who directed the Red Cross September 11th Recovery Program, working closely with FEMA and other emergency services in the wake of the disaster. Susan began her role with the City of Seattle on May 2. Welcome to Seattle, Susan!

The Green Electronics Council (GEC) today announced the winners of the 2016 EPEAT Sustainable Purchasing Awards, which recognize excellence in the procurement of sustainable electronics. EPEAT is a free and trusted source of environmental product ratings that makes it easy for purchasers to select high-performance electronics that support their organization’s sustainability goals. EPEAT is managed by the Green Electronics Council.

The City of Seattle was one of 38 award winners representing a wide range of organizations, including national and provincial/state governments, leading academic institutions and the healthcare sector.

Mayor Ed Murray announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Seattle and the City of Shenzhen, China, to support biomedical research and the establishment of a joint institute between the University of Washington School of Medicine and Shenzhen-based BGI, one of the world’s largest genomics organizations.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) commits both cities to greater cooperation on issues of medical research and health care. UW and BGI signed a separate MOU in Shenzhen agreeing to collaborate on development of the joint institute.

“This agreement between the Cities of Seattle and Shenzhen will encourage and support meaningful cooperation between two global leaders of innovation in medical research and technology,” Murray said. “Ultimately, it will create new opportunities for our biotech and health care industries, and help advance pioneering medical technology that will benefit patients, doctors and communities around the globe.”

“We at the UW are looking forward to working alongside BGI in charting the future of genomics research, especially in accelerating the application of new sequencing technologies to human health,” said Dr. Jay Shendure, an M.D./Ph.D scientist and professor of genome sciences at the UW, and a national advisor on precision medicine initiatives.

The joint institute is part of BGI’s goal of developing an innovation center in Seattle. The City of Seattle looks forward to working with BGI on the process to develop this significant addition to the city’s innovation economy.

Shenzhen, a coastal city of over 10 million people, is considered the high-tech and life sciences hub of China. “With a sound foundation in the fields of biotech and health technology, a host of well-positioned industries have taken shape in Shenzhen, including gene medicine, polypeptide medicine, anti-tumor medicine, medical imaging equipment and life information monitoring,” according to the MOU.

The MOU was signed during the third day of a Murray-led trade delegation to three cities in China, which includes Hong Kong and Hangzhou. The mission is part of an ongoing effort to encourage more foreign direct investment in Seattle, expand economic opportunities for local companies, and establish international partnerships.

“We are thrilled to be part of this historic moment between Seattle and Shenzhen,” said Kristi Heim, president of the Washington State China Relations Council. “Deepening the partnerships between our two cities will support economic growth, scientific advancement and long-term collaboration in public health and environmental protection.”

The agreement builds on two earlier MOUs signed in 2015 between Seattle and Shenzhen pledging cooperation issues such as low carbon urban development, electric vehicles, information technology, life sciences, and people-to-people exchanges. Murray also hosted visits by Shenzhen Mayor Xu Qin and former Deputy Mayor Tang Jie.

The trade delegation includes: Murray, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, representatives from the Washington State China Relations Council, the Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle, Alaska Airlines, Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Vulcan, and the University of Washington. They met with government officials and business representatives in Hong Kong and Shenzhen before Murray is joining a separate group of e-commerce companies on a trip organized by the Washington State China Relations Council to the City of Hangzhou.

For most of its history, Seattle has had deep cultural connections to China. Throughout the trip, Murray will seek to deepen those ties as he meets with local officials and business representatives.